Today we face a climate of ever increasing misdirection by popular media. This site, along with others, aims to reveal the reality of America and the loss of fact inherent to the over riding theme of our current political and social confusion: Purposeful deception.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Are Police Becoming Militarized?

Just how bad is the civil
unrest associated with the Occupy protests in some U.S. cities? This bad: There is an online petition calling on California Gov. Jerry
Brown to send the National Guard to protect Occupy Oakland protesters from the
city's police department.

In recent weeks, hundreds of
protesters in Oakland
have clashed with police officers in riot gear. In one tragic incident, a
24-year-old Iraq
war veteran named Scott Olsen was critically injured when he was hit in the
head by a teargas canister at close range.

Even compared to the Occupy
Wall Street demonstrations and other protests around the country, what's
happening in Oakland
shocks the senses. Judging from video and firsthand accounts, the police in
that city have been especially brutal in dealing with the protesters.

Just two decades ago, in the
1990s, the favored law-enforcement approach was community policing: the idea
that police were most effective when they were intertwined with the community.
This is a throwback to an earlier time, when a cop walked a beat, knew the
neighborhoods and made sure doors were locked after dark.

Now, in some cases, instead
of the police serving the community, it's more like the police are at war with
the community.

How did we get here, in Oakland and elsewhere?
And how do we go back?

I have a friend who thinks
he knows what went wrong. He's a cop who has been on the force more than 25
years, having worked himself into the upper management ranks of a midsized
police department near San Diego.
I'm comfortable in that world. My father is a retired cop who spent 37 years on
the job. I grew up around cops. And now, some of my good friends are cops. I
often say that while I cover politicians for a living, I'd rather spend the day
with police.

Yet my relationship with the
institution of law enforcement is also complicated. My upbringing doesn't
prevent me from -- in the course of doing my job -- criticizing police officers
or law enforcement agencies when they turn into bullies, betray the public
trust or deny a suspect due process. I'm also highly critical of the tendency
of some police officers to dabble in areas of law enforcement they don't
understand, such as federal immigration law.

The siege in Oakland, where police
have repeatedly clashed with protesters, reminds us that there's one other
thing that police officers shouldn't do; impersonate soldiers. That's what
concerns my friend, who agreed to talk with me on the condition of anonymity,
given the sensitive nature of the subject. Like many law enforcement officers,
he was in the military. But after he was discharged he began a career in
civilian law enforcement. He knows the difference between the job that he used
to have and the one he has now.

But, he fears, that may not
be true for a lot of cops on patrol these days. The way my friend sees it, our
police forces have become militarized.

"The mission hasn't
changed," he said, "And that's to make people feel safe in their
communities. It's how we go about doing it that has changed."

These are miniature armies,
stocked with every weapon imaginable -- all at the officer's disposal.

"You make adjustments
here and there," he said, "The next thing you know, there are machine
guns in the squad cars."

You heard right. Machine
guns. And not in a weapons locker back at the station house. In many cities, the machine guns are in the police cars, next to
the standard issue shotgun. On the officer's belt; a Taser, a 40 caliber
handgun with 16 bullets in the clip and one in the chamber, a baton and mace.
And that's for one officer. Multiply it out, and you'll get an idea of how much
firepower is circulating out on the street.

There is more on the way.
Leaf through a police magazine these days and you'll see ads for automatic
weapons, military equipment and the like -- all being pitched at police
officers. Midsized and larger police departments have long had SWAT teams. But
now, even patrol officers have access to more firepower than they used to. The
must-have item this holiday season: an armored assault vehicle. That's right. A
tank, which will be back at the station house if you need it.

"There's a sense among
new recruits that police work is about soldiering," my friend lamented.
"And we don't discourage it. In fact, we encourage it -- when (in reality)
about 90% of what we do is community relations."

He's right. Law enforcement
isn't about kicking down doors. It's about building and maintaining
relationships.

Police officers have the
power to either make their job simpler or more difficult. If they treat people
well and build relations, people will cooperate. They'll have leads, witnesses
and informants. But if they see the people they're supposed to "protect
and serve" the way an occupying army sees the native population, they're
going to encounter resistance, suspicion, defiance and other things that make
their job harder. That's a recipe for chaos.

Meanwhile, these mini-armies
are always on the lookout for the next battle. And, as events in Oakland and around the
country suggest, they usually find it.

2 comments:

Police need to protect themselves as well as the citizenry, and ought to have whatever tools and weaponry is needed to do so. People who attack the police or who deliberately place themselves in unsafe situations have to expect consequences.

I disagree...there is no need for the police to be driving tank vehicles, armed with automatic weapons and riot gear when going to a peaceful protest. These are scare tactics to discourage dissent and to quell protest. These tactics are very anti-American. The Constitution states that the people have a right to establish a militia to oust a corrupt form of government if it would arise. This militarization is meant to keep that from happening. It is a reflection of the fascism which has taken hold of our once, great nation; plain and simple.

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